Scaling Bitcoin

and

the Blockchain

the social, economic, and technological roads ahead

Eric Martindale • All Things Open • October. 26th, 2016

Eric Martindale

eric@blockstream.com • @martindale

Presentation & Source Code Available
martindale.github.io/scaling-bitcoin

Some Things I've Worked On

  • decentralized education
  • collaborative writing platforms
  • augmented reality
  • computer vision
  • machine learning
  • predictive intelligence

Names of the Projects

  • Trinket (formerly Coursefork)
  • Quill (formerly RolePlayGateway)
  • Neogence
  • Mirascape
  • LocalSense
  • SenseMaker

What We're Going To Talk About

Scaling Bitcoin

(no, really!)

  1. Bitcoin as a shared resource
  2. How Bitcoin works today
  3. What's possible
  4. How to get there

The most important thing

Bitcoin is people-powered.

Let's focus on treating one another better.

No one wants to work in an environment like this. Especially not newcomers.

We need them to scale!

What is Bitcoin?

Digital Cash

  • David Chaum, "Blind signatures for untraceable payments", 1982 (became DigiCash in 1990)
  • Adam Back, Hashcash, 1997
  • Wei Dai, B-Money, 1998
  • Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin, 2008

Digital everything.

Code As Law

Bitcoin is a trust anchor.

It is the system that provides the most reasonable degree of certainty for systems requiring shared perspectives.

Where We Came From

Cypherpunks

value privacy over all else

Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age.
Privacy is not secrecy.
Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.

— "A Cypherpunk's Manifesto", Eric Hughes, 1993

How It Works

Bitcoin is a simple idea

Developers Write The Code

Users Choose To Run The Code

Computers Execute It Faithfully

Trust

Our entire system depends on it.

through network design

we seek to reduce or eliminate

Central points of failure.

in finance, we call this counterparty risk.

Changing Models of Trust

...is a complex field of study.

  • in finance,
           we call it counterparty risk.
  • in economics,
           we call it the central planning problem.
  • in computer science,
           we call it the Byzantine General's Problem.

Where Are We

Blockchain-mania

Smart Contracts

"The Block Size Debate"

Where We're Going

Crypto-utopia?

  • Reduction in Coercion, Oppression
  • Money as Free Speech
        Buckley v. Valeo, 1976
  • Bitcoin as an Emergent Organism
        What is our role?

Challenges Ahead

Paradigm Shift

Without transparency, we must trust.

We didn't have the technology then, but we do now!

Change is hard. Momentum is powerful.

Social Responsibility

A rising tide lifts all boats.

Resilience emerges from diversity.

A strong society is a diverse one.

Some Ideas

  • Work together.
    1. Extend the ecosystem.
    2. More than just the blockchain!
  • Invest in the code.
        This means the people who write it!
  • Increase the block size?

Thank You!

@martindale · @blockstream

elementsproject.org

Bitcoin

the most well-tested, battle-hardened blockchain

The Bitcoin network

has been functional for

of the time since January 3rd, 2009.

(Bitcoin's genesis block: Jan 3 2009 02:54:25 GMT)

includes 6⅓ hours of downtime on 2013-03-12.

Building a blockchain?

Use Bitcoin's codebase.

(seriously. don't re-invent the wheel!)

Elements

are composable components
that extend the Bitcoin codebase.

They transform Bitcoin's features
into domain-specific solutions.

Sidechains

are bundles of Elements
deployed as a blockchain
on the Bitcoin network.

Sidechain Ecosystems

Blockchain
(Bitcoin)
Sidechaina
Sidechaina1
Sidechainb
Sidechaina2

Reasons to use Sidechains

  • Network Upgrades, without service disruption
  • Experiments, with reversible outcomes
  • Beta releases, for optional improvements
  • ...what else can you imagine?

Elements Alpha

is a

Public Sidechain

pegged to Bitcoin's testnet blockchain

Launched on June 1st, 2015

🎆🎂🎆

Segregated Witness

  • 2015, Q2: first prototype built in Elements
  • 2015, June: deployed to the Alpha sidechain
  • 2015, December: proposed to the Bitcoin community at the Scaling Bitcoin conference in Hong Kong (BIP 141)
  • 2016, June 6th: accepted into Bitcoin Core (PR #8149)

OP_CHECKSEQUENCEVERIFY

  • 2015, Q2: first prototype built in Elements
  • 2015, June: deployed to the Alpha sidechain
  • 2015, Aug.: proposed to Bitcoin community (BIP(s) 68, 112, 113)
  • 2016, Feb. 12th: accepted into Bitcoin Core (PR #7524)
  • Block 419328: activated on mainnet! 💥

Elements: What's Next?

Elements may be the largest, most impactful opportunity in front of us.

  1. The cryptofinancial revolution is happening.
  2. Companies are pivoting to capitalize early.
  3. We've allowed Elements to languish.

Let's make Elements the de facto solution.

Immediate Needs

1. Developer Experience

2. Release Rhythm

3. Support Expectations

"Elements Next" is a major update, including changes from both Bitcoin and Liquid.

Once published, let's keep the pace.

Developer Experience

If we make Elements the easiest technology stack to use, developers will choose it when building new things.

When that happens, their solutions become dependent on our expertise, presenting an excellent revenue stream.

This will require consistent, dedicated effort.

We need to build a lot of tooling.

These tools become the world's new financial backbone.

Productization

  • Elements Explorer

  • Elements Wallet

  • Elements Exchange

  • Elements Core

  • Liquid, ...

Discussions

  1. Development Process
  2. Community
  3. Sample Projects & Tools
  4. Productization

www.elementsproject.org

The Elements Project

Discussion & Questions

eric@blockstream.com • @martindale

Presentation & Source Code Available

martindale.github.io/elements-project